Return of the Taliban will boost jihadists in the West

Members of Taliban taking control of the presidential palace in Kabul after Afghanistan's president flew out of the country. Picture: AFP

The warning from MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, that the Taliban’s victory will inspire young jihadists in the West confirms fears that another wave of terror will follow the fall of Kabul.

MI5 boss Ken McCallum.

Western intelligence agencies have been reporting for months that international terror groups were seeking to rebuild in the Taliban’s shadow in Afghanistan, boosting extremists in Europe and the US. The Taliban’s triumphant march into Kabul on Sunday was exactly the “victory narrative” that jihadists had sought since ISIS was defeated in Syria, McCallum said.

Islamic State jihadists.

The thousands of prisoners freed from Bagram airbase and Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul made a mockery of the Taliban’s pledge never to allow Afghanistan to again become a haven for international terrorism. “High-level” militants from al-Qaeda and Islamic State are back in the field, and though both groups are diminished, they could regain strength in the vacuum of Afghanistan.

An Afghan child walks near military uniforms as he with elders wait to leave the Kabul airport. Picture: AFP

“If pockets of ungoverned space open up, some terrorist groups might seek ... to re-establish some training facilities there,” McCallum said last month.

Even as the US negotiated its withdrawal in return for those specious security guarantees, experts said that al-Qaeda remained embedded within the Taliban. Contact between the senior leaderships went quiet while the Taliban gained legitimacy at the negotiating table in Qatar. As American diplomats sought a way out of the quagmire, they pressured the Afghan government into compromises while the insurgents conceded nothing.

The ideological kinship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remains strong. Many of the insurgent leaders returning to power, including the next president, Abdul Ghani Baradar, are veterans of the Taliban regime in the 1990s, when Mullah Omar took Osama bin Laden under his wing and let him plot 9/11.

A Taliban fighter, right, searches the bags of people coming out of the Kabul airport. Picture: AFP

Al-Qaeda training camps have been smashed in Afghanistan throughout the conflict, only to resurface. Isis has demonstrated how online recruitment is enough to inspire attacks on the West.

Other consequences of the Taliban takeover could soon engulf the region and emerge on the doorstep of Europe. The country remains the world’s biggest supplier of opium and heroin.

The estimated value of the opiate economy is up to $8.5 billion a year. Experts have warned that the loss of foreign aid and investment will hasten an economic collapse that is likely to prompt a boom in poppy growing.

Another refugee crisis in Europe looks inevitable.

The Times